Baltimore City Delegate Curt Anderson talks about the prospects of a marijauan decriminalization bill passing this year. Download This File

Baltimore County Sen. Bobby Zirkin sponsored the marijuana decriminalization bill in the Senate, and talks about the apparent road block in the House. Download This File

Efforts to reduce the penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana have appeared to come to a roadblock in the Maryland Legislature.

After the Senate approved its own marijuana decriminalization bill last week, the House Judiciary Committee postponed a scheduled vote on its own bill, first on Saturday, and then on Monday.

The panel’s chairman, Joe Vallario opposes both legalizing and decriminalizing marijuana. He is promising a hearing on the Senate bill.

Baltimore City Delegate Curt Anderson, who has co-sponsored the bill in the House of Delegates told WBAL News that he doesn't think Vallario will let the bill out of his committee.

"I don't think the chairman of the Judiciary Committee wants decriminalization or legalization of marijuana, passed in any form. He is just dead set against it," Anderson told WBAL News.

"The question now is what do the proponents for decriminalization bill do?"

Anderson, who sits on Vallario's committee, says the next step could be amending the language of the Senate bill into another bill.

The Senate bill would reduce the penalty for possessing less than 10 grams of marijuana from 90 days in jail to a 100-dollar fine.

Last week, Vallario told WBAL-TV that he is concerned the bill would encourage more drug abuse. However, Vallario said that he was encouraged by amendments in the Senate bill which required juvenile and three-time adult offenders to appear in court, where a judge could sentence them to drug treatment.

Vallario was leading a committee hearing today, and could not be reached for comment.

Baltimore County Democratic Senator Bobby Zirkin, who sponsored the Senate version of the bill, told WBAL News that he is frustrated.

"I would hope that Chairman Vallario will take a look at the data, and not hold to old notions," Zirkin told WBAL News.

"There's no evidence of increased use of marijuana, in any of the 17 states where the moved from criminal to civil, no increased use of any other drugs."

Last year, a similar bill passed the Senate, but never made it out of committee in the House.